


ignite

by ThanksForListening



Series: Game of Thrones One Shots [6]
Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Missandei deserved better, TW: Vomiting, aka me grieving, dany grieving, im fuming, post 8x04
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-07
Updated: 2019-05-07
Packaged: 2020-02-27 22:21:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18748252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThanksForListening/pseuds/ThanksForListening
Summary: "After it happened, Dany took to the sky."Daenerys responds to the death of Missandei.





	ignite

**Author's Note:**

> literally wrote this at 11:00 on sunday with no intention of ever posting it bc it was just my way of getting all my emotions out but here i am anyway. i wrote this listening to the season 8 score that got released ("Night King") so if anyone wants music for this one i'd hit that up. also i miss missandei already it isn't fair.

After it happened, Dany took to the sky. She didn’t have to command him, tell him where to go or what to do — Drogon seemed to know, as he always seemed to know, exactly what she needed. He took flight, carried her to a peak that stood far away from King’s Landing, far away from her armies, far away from her friends. Far away from anyone who would seek to comfort her, because if even one person looked at her with pity in their eyes she thought she might burn them alive. So she flew, letting the wind steal her tears and her screams, her grief vaporizing among the clouds. 

When they landed, she stared out at the cliff’s edge and screamed, a primal sound she hadn’t know lived in her, a roar that rivaled those of her dragons. She screamed until her voice went hoarse. She didn’t give a damn about how a good ruler should have stayed with her people. She didn’t give a damn about what Tyrion or Varys or anyone else would think of her. Only one person’s opinion has ever truly mattered, anyway. 

The tears had started somewhere during the flight, and they didn’t stop now. It wasn’t fair. She knew it was a childish thought, but she couldn’t help it. Missandei was _good_. The woman didn’t have a hurtful bone in her body. She was the standard — the people in the North could call her a tyrant, the people in the South could call her an usurper, but as long as Missandei stood with her, Dany knew she was okay. As long as Missandei stood with her, she wasn’t the Mad King’s Daughter, or the vengeful Dragon Queen here to burn the people alive. If Missandei believed in her, trusted her, then she hadn’t gone too far, hadn’t crossed a line she couldn’t come back from. 

Dany closed her eyes. She kept seeing it — her head, then her body, tumbling over the wall. The sound it made when she hit the ground. The blood that stained the space beneath her. She tried to get the image out of her head, but instead her mind showed her Rhaegal falling out of the sky, the water below her turning red as he sunk to the bottom of the sea. His image was replaced with Jorah, surrounded by death, gasping for air that would never come. She saw the Dothraki’s flames going out one by one, Viserion attacking her with blue eyes and a broken body, Drogo staring past her with a lifeless gaze. 

She got on her knees and vomited. It was too much. All this death, all this pain, all this misery, and for what? For a throne? For people who may reject her the moment she sat down, based on the actions of a father she didn’t know? For a life helping people, when she herself has known nothing but pain and suffering? How could anyone justify this kind of life, play this game and come out the other end wanting to continue living? 

The thought made her freeze. Despite all the pain, all the trauma, she had never once wished for death. She still didn’t, not really, but for the first time she wondered what kind of life she might have by the time she won this war. What kind of world would she live in, if Missandei wasn’t with her? She hadn’t expected her to stay by her side forever, but she’d already begun looking forward to trips to Naath, to seeing where her best friend, where her sister, called home. She had wanted nothing more than the absolute best for her; now, Dany couldn’t help but feel as if she’d doomed her by coming into her life. She knew Missandei had been miserable before, forced into slavery, hardly living a life, but how much of a better one had Dany given her? What good did Dany do? Show her a life of violence? Bring her to a fight against the dead? She may have saved her from the slavers, but Dany wondered whether a life by her side was just another form of chains. After all, that’s how she ended up, wasn’t it? A prisoner, a victim in a war that had nothing to do with her. 

That image -- Missandei in chains, dying confined to the one thing she despised more than anything -- made Dany lean over and retch again. She didn’t have anything left in her, but she couldn’t stop the motion, the feeling of getting everything she’d seen out of her body. No matter how much she got out, she couldn’t escape the thought that she might as well have been the one to put her in those chains. Her fault. She brought Missandei out to sea, foolishly thinking she’d be safer with her, with Grey Worm. Idiot. When would she ever learn? Nobody who loved her was safe. Death followed her like a shadow, taking all those who surrounded her until only Dany was left. 

Breathing became increasingly difficult. She had finally stopped heaving, her body too tired for the motion and too empty to release anything, but her sobs still took in more air than she could let out. The anxiety was a familiar one, the experience of struggling to breathe nothing new to her. Missandei used to help her, when she’d wake up and forget how to tell the reality from the nightmares, when the reality _was_ the nightmare. She’d sit with her, breathe with her, until air flowed back into her lungs and the tears stopped falling down her face. Dany instinctively looked for her, before remembering why she was here, what caused the crying in the first place. 

She sobbed harder. Breathing -- she couldn’t -- she knew -- but -- alone. Alone, Missandei had died alone, Dany was alone, it wasn’t fair, wasn’t fair, was-- it was hers, her fault, her fault her fault her--

A roar behind her made her flinch, shocked her body into a state of immobility, of artificial calm. She turned behind her, saw Drogon roar at the sea, and remembered who else had lost someone that day, who else she had lost that day. She tried to stand, tried to go to him, but her body couldn’t carry her own weight. Her voice was nonexistent. The Unburnt had lost her flame, and not even a spark remained. 

She stared out at the sea. She wondered, for a moment, whether this was what drowning felt like. The water called out to her, as both a threat and a form of relief. She felt stuck, frozen in time and place. Her body couldn’t handle it, couldn’t take any more grief. She shut down, allowed a lifeless expression to rest on her face as she stared at nothing, at the neverending sea, at the sun shining above her. She couldn’t think, couldn’t speak, couldn’t do anything but watch and wish for sleep, for the unconscious to take control of her body and take her away from this world she could barely stand to live in. She had an echo of a thought that called out to Drogon, that wished for the warmth of his body to warm her own, but couldn’t find the strength to call to him. 

He knew, somehow, as he always did, and turned toward her anyway. Having exhausted every bone in her body, every fiber of her soul, Dany made her way to the ground, curling up in a ball. The last thing she saw before closing her eyes was Drogon’s wing curling around her, blocking out the light, the sky, the world. 

She dreamed of nothing, her subconscious too exhausted to torture her. When she opened her eyes, darkness had taken over. Drogon adjusted his wing when she stood up, shaky but stable. She stared up at the stars. They lit up the sky, a thousand tiny flames that shone among the dark. She wondered whether the stars looked different on Naath, why she hadn’t paid any attention to them during her travels. She saw her life mapped out in the sky, each star a fire that had gone out on land and found its way up. Making her way to Drogon, she climbed his body without taking her eyes off the stars. They would hold her accountable, remind her every night what she planned to do. For Missandei, she would burn the world to the ground; because of Missandei, she would have patience, have a goal, do only what was absolutely necessary. She would set King’s Landing ablaze, walk through the fire and make sure Cersei felt every minute of agony, every ounce of pain, that she felt now. Every time she stared at the sky, she vowed to hear that word echoing in her brain, a promise that she would fulfill with her dying breath, a spark reignited in her: _Dracarys_.

**Author's Note:**

> if u wanna cry with me about Missandei hit me up on tumblr @thanks--for--listening.


End file.
